A NEW PARADIGM FOR MEDICAL MISSION: A NORTH AMERICAN'S PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Looking back Early American protestant medical missionaries made certain people in China Mission Society uncomfortable. Was taking care of body really Lord's work? It took a paradigm shift from send a preacher style of evangelism to see that medical work could be a part of overall goals of mission. Later two approaches were combined in places such as Korea, where medical teams became key tools for evangelism and church planting as they travelled to rural areas and set up clinics in morning, followed by preaching and prayer meetings in afternoon. Many early medical missionaries were fine lay preachers, some trained in both theology and medicine. Once clinics and hospitals were established, jobs that were created were an encouragement for nationals who accepted gospel, and during period of training, a means to bring students to Christ. During this era, which David Korten calls the first generation of medical mission, running of hospitals was in hands of western missionaries who practised medicine in western mode of their training and trained others in same curative clinical pattern. Probably because they were foreign to culture in which they were serving, and also because they were very busy, they were often unaware of, or rejected, more holistic traditional medicine that had been in community before they arrived and remained an important, but separate, part of total community resource available for responding to illness. In fact, many western medical missionaries were unaware of different ways in which, not only traditional healers, but patients themselves looked at illness and its causes. Another way that this period might be characterized would be as era of medical mission. Western Christian missionaries were parent figures who set standards, provided resources, did training and mentored indigenous staff. Even as nationals were trained to become health care professionals and accept leadership positions, they were expected to carry on family tradition. Because these mission hospitals were often large and, by standards of community, complex and expensive, they stayed in hands of foreign mission boards. In some cases, even though they were part of overall mission strategy, they took on a life of their own and became fairly separate from churches, which were becoming increasingly indigenized as their own pastors and evangelists emerged. The post World War II era forced a second paradigm shift into something that became known as partnerships. This shift was caused by a number of factors, including moves from colonialism to independent governments. Mother churches too realized that time had come to allow their grown children to take over their own institutions. Although western mission boards usually tried to be responsive to partners and their priorities, relationships were tilted toward western mission organizations, which controlled financial resources. Meanwhile, some mission hospitals found that they were no longer only health care providers in their area. The arena was being entered by both government and private providers. To issue of How can poor be served? was added How can we continue to operate these facilities in this new competitive environment? Remaining competitive was expensive, and few indigenous churches had funds to compete with governments offering free care and private providers offering newest and best for those who could pay. This, coupled with shrinking funding from abroad, might have made it logical for indigenous churches to close their hospitals. There were other considerations, however. Hospitals meant jobs for Christians. They were a place where Christians and non-Christians could interact when prevailing culture offered few other such opportunities for dialogue and witness. …